Mainstream Weekly

Most recent articles

• Concern Over a Pernicious Agreement

  19 August 2009, by Ashok Parthasarathi

  A critical agreement finalised during US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s visit to India last month was the Indo-US End-Use Monitoring Agreement, or EUMA. It involves US Government inspectors continuously monitoring all hi-tech weapons and advanced electronic systems and equipment across a broad front imported by India from the US, to ensure that they are used by the Indian defence services and the Department of Atomic Energy and the Department of Space only for the purpose—”end use”—for (…)

• Book Review: A Deeply Reflective Study of India’s Foreign Policy

  19 August 2009, by S D Muni

  Challenge and Strategy: Rethinking India’s Foreign Policy by Rajiv Sikri; Sage Publications India Pvt. Ltd., New Delhi; 2009; pp. XX + 317; price: Rs 595.
  Those writing and researching on India’s foreign policy often are constrained by the lack of adequate access to authentic and reliable information. This constraint can be overcome, to some extent, through the writings of policy-makers who are willing and capable of sharing their experiences after retiring. There are courageous Foreign (…)

• Soldiers in the Nationalist Struggle

  19 August 2009, by Pritish Acharya

  The national movement in India was one of the longest and most widespread mass movements in the history of the modern world. Though it was initiated by a handful of newly educated persons, gradually more and more people got associated with it and made the process of nation-making very eventful in the country. It is in this context that an attempt has been made here to understand and analyse the role of soldiers in the movement. It purports to discuss how the soldiers as a social class had (…)

• Tribute: Baba Bhagat Singh Bilga and Vimla Dang - Pride of Punjab

  19 August 2009, by Chaman Lal

  Baba Bhagat Singh Bilga, the lone surviving Ghadarite revolutionary of India, breathed his last on May 22, 2009 at England in his son’s house. He had just completed 102 years of age the previous month. He was as alert as ever when I met him last on November 1, 2008 at the Desh Bhagat Yaadgar Hall, of which he was the President. He had unfurled the Ghadar Party flag on that day as usual to mark the Ghadar Party Memorial Day, formed in the USA, way back in 1913.
  Baba Bilga was born on April (…)

• Committing to Continuity

  19 August 2009, by Namrata Goswami

  When Democratic Presidential candidate Barack Hussein Obama emerged as a front-runner in the 2008 US Presidential elections, many in India especially in the policy circles were worried. The argument was that “the George W. Bush Jr years” had been one of the most productive for enhancing US-India strategic relationship after decades of distrust and suspicion. So, the related major question dominating Indian policy discourses was: will a Democratic President continue the upsurge in US-India (…)

• Was Partition of India Inevitable?

  19 August 2009, by R M Pal

  This article was sent to us quite sometime back but could not be used earlier for unavoidable reasons. —Editor
  On the black Saturday evening my family and I switched on the TV and heard the black and sad news of Pakistan coming under emergency rule, which meant Martial Law. We changed channels but all channels were telecasting the same news. I said, to the great annoyance of my wife, for she does not like my criticism of Gandhi, in Hindi, “Yeh sab Gandhi ki meharbani hai.” What I wanted to (…)

• A Sell-Out to the Powerful: History Repeats Itself

  19 August 2009, by Sudhir Vombatkere

  Introduction
  Special Economic Zones (SEZs) are not a new concept, but the scale, speed and socio-economic ambience in which these are being created are entirely new. Since the enactment of the SEZ Act 2005, 300 SEZs are functional and 560 more approved.
  While reading about the foundation of Madras (now Chennai) in 1639, and the manner in which the British received a firmaan from the local ruler for grant of land and trading concessions, its similarity with the creation of SEZs raised a (…)

• Tribute to Subhas Chakraborty: A Maverick Communist with Mass Following

  19 August 2009, by Sumit Chakravartty

  The untimely death of Subhas Chakraborty, 68, West Bengal’s Minister for Transport, Sports and Youth Affairs, in Kolkata on August 3 has caused a genuine void in the State’s Left circles. A maverick Communist in every sense being unorthodox and independent-minded both in his utterances and his activities, he was a real people’s leader and this was testified by the unprecedented crowds that came out on the streets of the city during his last journey—the metropolis was literally plunged in (…)

• On Batla House and NHRC, Shopian Killings and Para-military Behaviour

  19 August 2009, by Humra Quraishi

  Several academics and activists together with legal experts have countered the NHRC report on the alleged encounter at Batla House. Space constraints will come in the way, so let me focus only on two such reports.
  One report is sent by Anhad’s Shabnam Hashmi:
  “On 20th May, the Delhi High Court, acting on a petition filed by the People’s Union for Democratic Rights and Anhad, had asked the National Human Rights Commission to conduct their own inqury into the alleged Batla House (…)

• Whither Information Technology in India?

  16 August 2009, by Sudeep Ray

  Sudeep Ray 58, a Marxist activist who happened to be the West Bengal State Committee member of the Party for Democratic Socialism (PDS) headed by former CPM MP Saifuddin Chowdhury, passed away in Kolkata on July 3 night after being involved in a road accident.
  Sudeep was a leader of the bank employees movement in West Bengal and was in the CPI for several years having been active in the students’ movement when one came in touch with him and forged a bond of fraternal intimacy. He like (…)